What Do Pitcher Plants Eat?

While doing some routine maintenance in the Savage Garden carnivorous plant exhibit recently, we found something a little unexpected in one of the spent pitchers of the Sarracenia. It's common for old pitchers to be full of the carcasses of dead bugs, but this one had slightly larger prey inside.

Yes, that's the decaying body of an anole, a small lizard that's common here in Florida. It was tightly wedged into this pitcher (the pitcher as shown has been cut open and spread apart), and the pitcher itself was full of liquid. The anole likely crawled down into the pitcher following smaller prey, like ants, and found itself unable to back out due to the slippery pitcher walls and downward-pointing hairs that make the pitcher such an effective trap. The anole probably either drowned or starved to death.

Not a pretty end for the lizard, but it had its own revenge. Sarracenia aren't really made for digesting organisms larger than insects. The pitcher was unable to digest such large prey effectively, and eventually the rotting carcass killed the pitcher itself. (Not the entire plant - just the single pitcher that trapped the anole.) 

A typical pitcher plant diet is made of up ants, flies, wasps, beetles, and other insects. A very small baby anole or frog might get caught from time to time, but anything larger is usually able to escape. This lizard was an unlucky example of the larger prey that occasionally and accidentally fall victim to the pitfall traps of Sarracenia. 

Interested in learning more about carnivorous plants? Click here.